Katastrophies & Other Important News

Where do I begin?  This weekend was a blast, getting out of town is the only way I can truly relax.  After all, there is no dusting, laundry or organizing that I can do in a hotel room. 

Friday night we ate at Hula Hut, it’s right on the lake and so beautiful….but apparently it’s not exactly a secret dinner spot because ½ of Austin was there.  We waiting two hours to be seated and by the time we did we were full of chips and queso.  Next we stopped by some place with a see through dance floor that hovered above a tank with sharks.  I felt bad for the sharks – they spend their lives in a small dark place getting danced on, sort of like a stripper’s pole.  We ended the evening on a rooftop deck overlooking the city, it was beautiful.  At midnight Chad and I’s inner alarm went off and we headed out so that we could be rested for the day ahead.

You know what moves slower than a group of 15 people trying to get up, get dressed, in the car, out of Wal-Mart and eventually in the river?  NOTHING, that’s what.  I think it took 2 hours for the whole process once we got everyone out of the hotel.  Chad almost had a coronary.  But all was made well once we got on the river.  And off we went!  Well, almost, after about 20 minutes of sitting stagnant with 250 other people I decided to take the situation into my own hands.  With friends in tow I began paddling with all the strength in my newly buff arms so that we could make some headway and actually start floating and stop sitting. 

The river was low but we never had to stand up and walk which was good and we didn’t hit any of the major rapids before we had to get off and head back.  Before boarding the bus Chad convinced some poor guy to down the fruit juice left over in a bag of rum soaked fruit.  Yikes, I am just glad the bus ride was short and that I wasn’t riding with “that guy” back home.

The group ended the trip with dinner at TJs, a fab burger joint in Gruene.  I may or may not have enjoyed a burger (no bun of course), French fries and a chocolate shake.  It was a good greasy time had by all.

On Sunday Chad, Beth and I stopped off at Roundrock to peruse the outlet stores.  Chad raked in some golf paraphernalia at Nike and Beth and I had luck at J Crew.  Too bad the Theory outlet wasn’t quite “outlet” enough for us.  Yes I realize that while $150 is great for a tank top previously priced at $270 it’s still a bit ridiculous. 

Here are some pics from the trip (not that I took any, I brought my camera but it won’t fit in my tiny purse along with my phone so I always leave it behind):

(There is a running joke that Chad does….this is it, he grabs someone’s camera and does a close up of himself…hilarious.)

(Gigi and Eric – not pictured Sophia, who was home getting spoiled by the grandparents.)

(Folks, this is Josh, he is kinda special, I won’t elaborate.)

(Look it’s me the floating head in the back, as usual!)

(Tawna and Matt, Tawna is really shy it’s like pulling teeth to get her to pose.)

Hey, guess what we bought:

That’s right, gone are the days of anxiety ridden nail clippings for Chewy, now he can relax and get his nails did.    He did so good too, he was so calm:

(Isn’t he precious?  Chad is cute too but Chewy is just adorable (shut up Tawna, he is too))

(We call this Chewy’s pimp nail, it’s scary long and always longer than the others.)

Touché I believe is the correct word for what I encountered yesterday:

Very cute Chad.  But I am afraid with all of his impish behavior that he worked his little self to the point of exhaustion and apparently evaporation, just look:

It’s like he just vanished and all that remained were his clothes….on the floor….by the bed.

P.S. I could not be more excited about our trip to Austin this weekend.  We are going out on Friday night and then heading to the river on Saturday!  I need a vaca like nobody’s business.  I will try to take pictures, although I am horrible, I never remember.

Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to present to you exhibit A titled Spoons In Sink:

Next let me present exhibit B known as Empty Dishwasher:

What does this all mean you might ask? What is the purpose? And more importantly what is the point! Well, good men and women of the unofficial blogging court, this is what you call Dish Dodging and Chad Lemons, my friends, is a repeat offender.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It’s true, I didn’t even have to plant evidence, it was right there when I got home. In fact, it wouldn’t be a weekday if I didn’t come home to some random utensil in the sink while the dishwasher sat empty perfectly able to accept more dishware. Sigh.

It’s not entirely Chad’s fault, I have serious OCD issues that I try to work on make Chad conform to. I may or may not have accidentally thrown away a $100 gift card once because it was part of the counter top clutter. And Chad can barely gets his legs out of his shorts before I am throwing them in the laundry complaining about how he always leaves his stuff everywhere. He is just lucky I don’t make up his side of the bed when he gets up in the middle of the night to use the restroom.

In other news – it’s practically winter here in Dallas, TX! Granted the highs are still in the 90s but what a difference 10 degrees can make. I had to wear my sweater in the grocery store yesterday and I even took Chewy on a walk last night (and he didn’t pass out). And just an update – there was no roach encounter yesterday, thank goodness.

See how happy he looks, he is so cute.

I have been instructed to update my blog immediately.  Apparently my readers are dying for fresh content and they are super anxious to find out the details of my weekend…..or they are just disgusted with my latest pictures of Rosie and the roach.  Yeah, probably the latter of the reasons.

So, more than a few have commented that they will be boycotting my blog unless I refrain from posting pictures of scary creatures (applicable to both Rosie and the roach).  And I say, give the people what they want (for fear of losing all 3 of my devoted followers).

First and foremost, we saw Public Enemy with Johnny Depp Christian Bale.  Two words: VERY SLOW.  It wasn’t bad it was just sleep inducing.  So here you go complainers, two visuals that I doubt I will get much flack for posting:

Let’s backtrack to Friday night when Chad and I headed to Mi Cocina.  You will never believe what I got – Brisket tacos and a side salad with avocado.  I am obsessed, they are so amazing I highly recommend them! 

Saturday was spent poolside with Beth.  I hadn’t enjoyed a lazy day by the pool in weeks which is simply a crime in this heat.  I got sufficiently bronzed and decided to continue the lounging inside.  I did wake my butt up to get to the movies though.  You know what’s so funny.  When you go to the movie theater at the mall and see all the teenagers standing outside waiting for their parents to pick them up…and then you see them light up cigarettes like it’s no big deal.  Yeah, um, ok you don’t have any leg hair and you are waiting for a ride from your legal guardian holding a bag from Hot Topic I seriously doubt you are old enough to smoke.  You.  Look. Ridiculous.  If only they knew.

I topped off the weekend with a lazy Sunday.  Although I did pick some weeds out back and do some pool exercises.  Just because you don’t sweat in the pool doesn’t mean you aren’t getting a good workout – I am very sore today.  Who knew that treading water with just your arms, then just your legs and jumping up and down in the shallow end could do so much.  Hooray for water resistance!

Sunday night means: True Blood, Hung and Entourage!  Honestly True Blood seemed to drag on last night, sorry but it’s true.  Hung was OK but Entourage was great!  Anyone recognize the new character Ashley – she was the annoying girl on Nick and Nora’s Infinite Play List.  Well, I must go now as tonight is grocery store night (pray that the roach doesn’t reprise its appearance) and I start my new workout circuit which is going to be a doosy! 

The other day, while watching one my favorite reality TV shows, I was reminded of a time, well, before reality TV shows; a simpler time.  These days everything is so complicated, stressful and insane that it’s easy to forget about a time when:

1.  Rosie O’Donnell was nice and funny and not a scary, loud, obnoxious, crafting loony.  (Need I say more?)

2. Tom Cruise wasn’t molesting Joey from Dawson’s Creek or raving about Scientology.  (Run Katie Run!)

3. You could carry a sharp nail file on an airplane without being “randomly” selected for a cavity search. (They can actually detect stuff like this now…sorry for the partial nudity.) 

4. Your spouse didn’t ignore you at dinner to text message friends, family, coworkers, and the stranger at the next table.

5. The only reality show was The Real World.

6. Nobody knew what a blog was.

7. Children played jump rope and Nintendo rather than making YouTube videos in their backyards.

8. A tweet was something a bird did outside your window…although both are very annoying.

9. You had to dress up for work, and no, I don’t mean wearing your “nice” jeans (but thank God for that, I would die if I had to wear panty hose everyday).

10. MySpace was that comfy area at the end of the couch with the perfect view of the TV, and not an Internet based social media tool/medium for child molesters to meet up with unsuspecting youth.

Ahhh, those were the days.  Everything seemed to make more sense.

Have you ever driven from work to the grocery store (a total of about 12 minutes) and emerged from your car soaking wet regretting your choice of a grey shirt that morning?  Me either, but it would be totally feasible considering it’s 108 degrees outside WITH the breeze. 

Yesterday’s grocery store trip was fairly uneventful…that is, until I hit the wine aisle (only browsing of course).  I couldn’t help but notice a GIANT and I do mean GIANT roach admiring the blush wines deciding between Beringer and Yellow Tail.  Ya’ll, roaches rank #1 on my list of GROSS OUT things.  I would rather be surrounded by snakes and spiders than see one measly roach.  And the fact that they can fly makes them even worse, as if the crunch factor weren’t enough.  Anyhow, being at the end of my trip I raced to the checkout line intent of alerting the checker to the issue.  I was expecting a response something like this “Giant roach on aisle 4, roach needs assistance on aisle 4, all associates to aisle 4 please there is a roach EMERGENCY!”  Instead I got blank stares, silence, confused looks and a genius Q&A session beginning with “Like a roach, roach?”  Yes Sherlock, a roach, roach.  Granted both the checker and the bagger were infants, they probably weren’t even allowed on the wine aisle.  But I left feeling not so confident that my next visit wouldn’t reveal a whole family of roaches if those two were in charge.

Yeah, gross huh….not what you want to see when shopping for meat and veggies.

It was so blooming hot yesterday that I couldn’t bear the thought of a run, a walk, jump roping or even my regular workout routine.  Instead I swam laps in the bathtub.  I mean pool.  But the water felt more like a bath.  I did end up doing some arm and abdominal work later, after the sun went down.

Last night I finally made the gluten free cupcake mix I bought a week ago.  I just needed to see if they were any good….and they were!  I was impressed with the flavor and texture, definitely a nice alternative to regular cake.  However, I didn’t realize that the gluten free icing I purchased was also dairy free, nut free and taste free.  The texture was so gross, like toothpaste, that I had to trash it after attempting to ice one poor cupcake:

                        This is less than pretty.

Can you tell I don’t usually “food blog?”

Before I sampled my own creation I made a green smoothie for dinner – it was good as always and the massive amount of frozen liquid did a nice job of bringing my body temperature down.

Oh and I watched two recorded shows last night – Denise Richards and Kendra.  They were ok but on the upside House Hunters has been featuring some new episodes FINALLY.  And I went ahead and set a new show to record: Miami Social.  It should be good, another reality gold mine for Bravo.  Also, I was intellectual last night and started a new book: Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall.  It’s really good thus far, and it’s a true story based in Fort Worth.

That was sort of the theme for this weekend.  Friday night we saw The Proposal, as planned.  Chad was, um, well, unimpressed as is usually the case whenever we see RCs (romantic comedies).  But I was delighted and Elizabeth was too, until she ran out of popcorn and began repeating “Movie over, movie over” less than quietly.  I tried to explain that just because she was finished with her snacks didn’t mean the movie was over…she begged to differ.

The next morning we work up late, well poor Chad had to get up for Real Estate class but Elizabeth, Chewy and I slept until 11:00 (three cheers for sleepy time pills).  Then we had a big breakfast and headed to the second movie of the weekend My Sister’s Keeper.  We met Gigi and Tawna at the snack station.  Dude, Cinemark Tinsletown Plano got a total makeover and for the most part it’s great but the snack station is totally confusing.  I couldn’t tell where lines began, you have to get your own drink now (I guess it’s just too much work for the high school kids to fill a cup) and I had to walk to 3 or 4 different locals juggling popcorn, tickets, drinks and my wallet – rather than just standing at one counter.  I would think that for $20 I could get a little more service than that but I guess everyone is downsizing, cutting people costs and what not.  The movie was good, we laughed, we cried, mostly cried but um the ending was NOT SO MUCH.  If you are going to make a movie from a book and the climax of the book is the ending and you go and change the ending in the movie don’t expect not to hear about it from me!  But I had heard the ending was different before I saw it so I wasn’t shocked, just annoyed.

Post movie we went for a swim, had dinner, hung out, went to bed and then woke up late again (score).  Sunday Jessica made the trip with us back to Sunset, Texas – all the while enjoying my tour guide expertise.  I pointed out Porky’s Beer and Wine located outside the trailer park, the Muslim Cemetery sign written in oddly perky cheerleader bubble letters, the highly secure Jehovah’s Witness church/center, the 15 cops in Decture pulling innocent otherwise law abiding citizens over (bastards), and of course all the colorful restaurants from here to there (Catfish O’Harleys, Armandos Mexican, and our favorite the Hot Skillet – conveniently located next to the Exxon station so you can get a moon pie after you enjoy a chicken fried steak).  But on the way back we made a very necessary pit stop at Mi Cocina for brisket tacos.  OMG, they make my mouth water.

To top off the weekend last night was filled with amazing TV.  Chad and I settled in for True Blood, Hung and (sound the trumpets) Entourage!  Is it weird that I think Eric is the cutest cast member?  He is really short and while I normally like the tall spindly type (case in point: husband) there is something appealing about E’s munchkinness.  Does anyone else remember when he played the dorky brother in Unhappily Ever After?  He has come so far – that poor puppet, I don’t think he ever made it big.

This week has flown by and it’s almost my favorite part of the week – the weekend. We have major plans this weekend (ok, not really). I am driving to the end of the earth tomorrow to pick up my sister. That night Chad is treating us to a movie, The Proposal, it has gotten good reviews so I am excited. Saturday my sis and I are meeting the girls at the movies for My Sister’s Keeper, which I have wanted to see since they began advertising. I read the book a few years ago and was impressed; although I never would have pictured Cameron Diaz as the mom, I guess Lauren Conrad was busy. But who am I to cast a movie. After the movie we will head back home for some swimming and a girl’s night.

Chad is taking his first of five real estate classes this weekend. I am so excited for him! Once he gets up and running I plan to join – I have LOVED looking at houses since I was little, my parents used to take us to open houses on Sundays after church. We were never in the market to move or anything my Mom just happened to love looking at houses. I would pick out which bedroom would be mine and decorate the place in my head. On top of just looking at houses I also love to decorate and organize so I am thinking real estate would be great for me – I am just going to let Chad go first is all. But no matter what I promise we will NEVER get one of those cheesy yard signs with our smiling faces and THE LEMONS TEAM scrawled across the front, yikes it’s scary just to think about. But do you think it would be professional to include Chewy on our business cards? Just think about it:

Yesterday’s weather was so nice that I decided to go for a run after my workout – and didn’t almost pass out half way in either!  Dinner was a green smoothie and some half salt Vics white popcorn (YUM).  I highly recommend this popcorn, you can have 3 cups for only 130 calories.

I came home from the grocery store with quite a few little goodies.  One of which was a package of Sunmaid Yogurt Raisins.  120 calories a box, sweet and they posses good snackability (which is so a word).   

I also grabbed an Amy’s Organic Gluten Free Enchilada bowl, previously I had tried the Santa Fe Rice Bowl and was not impressed, but the enchilada was different – very yummy and only 350 calories (which is good for a prepackaged meal that isn’t a Lean Cuisine). 

But don’t think I forgot Mr. Chad, because I totally hooked him up too:

• Queso

• TGI Friday’s Spinach Artichoke dip

• Bagel Bites

• Deli melt sandwich

• Dove ice cream bites (assorted)

• Pringles Pizza Sticks

• Drumsticks

After working out and eating drinking dinner Chad and I settled in to watch some mindless TV.  Even though we haven’t been watching the Bachelorette all season or since 2006 it was the only thing on (HBO was playing Live Free or Die Hard yet AGAIN, seriously, ENOUGH).  Anyhow, if you watched last night you know the whole Wes saga.  He is now and will forever be known as the only guy to get to the top four WITH A GIRLFRIEND.  Nice.  Now, I can’t remember, why did I stop watching this show??  Hmmm.  It was a special bonus that he is from Texas and dresses like Howdy Toolbag.

Other than that I finished Chasing Harry Winston and feel asleep next to the dog.  Yeah, it was a wild night per usual.

The title of today’s blog pretty much accurately describes this weekend, at least food wise.  Yesterday was especially awful.  I was tired from the weekend’s activities so I basically didn’t move from the couch all day, except to go to the fridge for more snacks.  Here is a brief overview of our Fourth of July holiday weekend:

Thursday Night: Grocery store, dinner, movie (Transformers), bed.

Friday: Food prep, run, Kaboom Town, shameful late night stop at Wendys, bed (I hear it’s good to eat a frosty before bed, especially if you cut the sugar with some French fries).

Saturday:  More food prep, decorating, complete OCD mode (I may or may not have trimmed the hedges an hour before party time), yell at Chad for not getting the ice and scooping the poop fast enough, Chad yell at me for being a tad bit insane (totally warranted), party time, water volleyball, lots of food, clean up time (for me at least), bed time.

Sunday: eat, do nothing, eat some more (mostly sugar, perhaps another Frosty), watch NYC Prep (my newest reality obsession), watch a recorded episode of The Real World, eat some Jelly Bellies, almost fall asleep, change out the laundry, eat some fruit dip and strawberries (since I worked up an appetite from changing out the laundry), eat some of Chad’s fries, have some ice cream, go into slight sugar coma, awake just in time for more Jelly Bellies, get mad that True Blood is a rerun, watch Hung instead (not that impressed), read my book, fall into a deep guilty sugar induced sleep…..and vow never to swear off sugar for any length of time because apparently the back lash is far worse than a slow steady intake.

Yikes, just typing out the amount of sugar I had scares me.  So yeah, my two weeks with no sugar was officially over on Saturday and boy did I make up for lost time.  My overall synopsis of going without: NOT WORTH IT.  I didn’t lose any weight, didn’t notice any difference in my energy level and was pretty grouchy to boot.  The biggest difference was that I thought about sugar a lot more, and craved it more than I ever do when I know I can have it whenever.  I mean, what sane person licks the icing tops off of cupcakes (and puts them back in the fridge hoping nobody will notice)?

P.S. Transformers was just OK.  Chad and I had high hopes because we loved the first one so much.  I had to roll my eyes at the first scene with Megan Fox (although I noticed Chad was laser focused) come on people, really, honestly (watch the movie and you will see what I mean). 

P.P.S. I highly recommend that you check out NYC Prep, it’s fun to watch.  They have a totally different language, much like The Hills, every other word is “like” or “um” or “yeah” or a combination of the three.  I think it’s quite insane that one young socialite lives in a loft with her 18 year old  brother while their parents live in the Hamptons.  I’m sorry what?   You let your 16 year old live in NYC without you?  I will be so shocked when they have to check her into rehab or become 35 year old grandparents.

THE TABLE

THE THEMED FRUIT

GIGI AND SOPHIA

I am just not a picture girl so these were all I got!